A spokesperson for Alison Azer says she has now located them thanks to her social media efforts and a story that aired on Global News. That story was then translated and broadcast in northern Iraq to bring attention to Azer’s situation.

The spokesperson says government efforts are now underway to recover the children, but Azer is hoping the Canadian government will assist in their return.

Azer and her ex-husband, former Comox Valley doctor Saren Azer, have shared custody of the children.

At the beginning of August, he traveled with the children to Paris. They were last seen in Germany on Aug. 13.

It’s believed Azer’s ex-husband, a Khurdish Canadian, took the children to Sulaimaniya, in Northern Iraq.

“The B.C. Supreme Court granted Saren the permission to take the children to Germany and France for about three weeks, a little bit less, this summer,” Azer said. “He was to have the children call me every 48 hours and another adult was court-ordered to travel with the children throughout. The last time I heard from the children was August 13 from a really busy street, really noisy street, in Cologne, Germany.”

“And by the 15th, which was the next time I was to hear from the children, he had already abducted them and got them on a plane from Dusseldorf to northern Iraq.”

“What went through my mind was ‘I was right’,” she said. “I knew that one day he would abduct these kids. And everything I had done to convince the courts, the police, our parenting coordinator, I was just dismissed as, and I hate the term, but an ex-wife with an ax to grind.”

“And all I was trying to do was to protect my kids and that didn’t work.”